User:Kithira/Course Pages/BIOL 15/Assignment 1

For your first Wikipedia assignment, you'll both create a Wikipedia account and learn about basic Wikipedia markup code (Wikicode, for short) by creating your very own user page. The steps below will guide you through the assignment.

1. At the top right of your screen, click the link that says "Create Account." Here, enter a unique username, a password, and an e-mail address. Complete any other required steps as directed in order to create your account.

2. Now that you're logged into your newly created account, you'll see several links at the top right of your screen, such as those to your preferences and watchlist. For now, we're only worried about your user page– click on the red, leftmost link of your username to get there.

3. You've now reached your user page. While other users may edit this page, it is intended for your personal use. For now, click in the edit box, and type, in plain text, the following: (a) an brief explanation that you're editing Wikipedia as part of a course at Williams College, (b) the reason(s) why you've chosen to take BIOL 15, and (c) a few topics of personal interest (e.g.- baseball, physics, Bruce Springsteen) that you might contribute to Wikipedia about. When finished, scroll to the bottom of the edit box, and click "Show Preview" to see the progress you've made.

4. You'll notice that while your text shows up, it lacks the bolded type and links that highlight main ideas and direct your reader to other Wikipedia pages. Use the Wikicode cheatsheet to complete the following tasks that will give your text a more polished look. (For these steps, continue to use the preview button to check the progress of your work.)

A. Bold a single word, of your choice. Italicize a phrase of no less than three words, also of your choice.

B. Create at least three links to other Wikipedia pages (these are called wikilinks, for short). For at least one of these links, use a "pipe" to make the title of the linked page different from the text that shows up (e.g., a link to the Williamstown, Massachusetts page for which only the text Williamstown shows up).

C. Below your other text, insert a Level 3 Header with the text "Userboxes."

5. In your final step, you'll learn about Wikipedia templates by placing userboxes on your user page. Userboxes are small, colored boxes that allow you to tell other users about yourself and your interests. Userboxes are a type of Wikipedia template, which is, essentially, a tool to place intricately coded objects on Wikipedia pages while using a minimal amount of coding text. Another example of a template is the infobox, often placed at the top right of articles to give the reader essential information about the topic. Read the first section at this link to learn the basics of userboxes (ignore everything from the collapsible tables section on down). As you'll see on the page, templates such as Userboxtop are marked with a pair of curly brackets (}) on either side. Copy the section of wikicode for Example 1 (the five lines located within the dashed box) onto to your user page, placing it below the Level 3 Userboxes header that you created earlier.

Now, since you may or not not be interested in ancient Rome, it's time to select your own userboxes for your page. Click here to find the userbox directory. Browse through it, and select at least three userboxes to replace the three you copied from Example 1. (To use a userbox, simply highlight the brackets and text of a userbox template in the directory, and paste it in between the Userboxtop and Userboxbottom templates on your user page.) Change the "Example 1" title to "My Userboxes."

When finished, be sure to describe your edit in the Edit Summary box (a simple "created user page" will do) and click the button that says "Save Page" (both the edit summary box and save page button are located below the edit box). You've now joined Wikipedia and created a user page that will tell other editors about why you're editing the encyclopedia.